Ballet is fairy sexy

Look at the photo here. What do you see? A ravishing ballerina with her partner, yes. But what else?

Recently, dance critic ALASTAIR MACAULAY wrote about New York City Ballet's season. He remarked that many of the ballerinas from the company now exhibit an "adolescent, trivial quality - not the same as youthfulness, which can be life enhancing." He said that this mundane trivial, teenagerly quality is too widespread.

"It grew more pronounced in Ms. [Darci] Kistler as her technique began to wane in the early 1990s, and it did much to nip the promise of Yvonne Borree in the bud. It also hangs over Sterling Hyltin, whose best dancing has extraordinary radiance and ease, and Maria Kowroski, whose unaffected grandeur and calm lyricism are often phenomenal. You long for these women to be decisive, to take charge (the ballerina's task) and draw the whole theater into the alchemical spell that can occur with the marriage of dance and music." [Read full article: http://tinyurl.com/cdld52]

As I read this, I wondered. I wondered if ballerinas today are taught how to empower themselves and be the kind of weavers of spells that brought both critical acclaim and dismay to the audiences who viewed and applauded or disdained the great prima ballerinas of the past.

NYCB has many fine coaches and teachers as well as wellness practitioners to help ballerinas develop in the direction the company wishes them to take. But is that enough?

And if what the above critic says is true, what kind of situation or opportunity is this for the ballerinas of today, not only within this New York City theatrical enterprise but worldwide?

What I believe is that this commentary is not about technique. Technique alone cannot support a dancer in this time of story ballet and contemporary choreography. A marriage is correct, but is it solely a marriage of dance and music or dance and something else--something that George Balanchine knew how to capture choreographically and draw out of the ballerinas he loved and developed? Is it something also that Jerome Robbins enhanced with his emphasis on motive, creating character, and a personal love of dance theater?

Am I discussing the development of one's spirit or soul?

Tell me what you think by taking the poll, and if you'd like to read about some solutions I suggest, comment or e-mail me privately. If you're a dancer or dancer wannabe, perhaps I can help you.

What do I see when I look at the above photograph of Janie Taylor, who is not mentioned in the quote included above? I see openness and flow through the arabesque until I reach the neck and head. I then see a kind of cramping and tension that is common in ballerinas and in NYCB females in particular. How would I address what I see? Through a release of the pelvic area, so that power can come from there (as in martial arts) and Pilates might help with this. But then, the dancer would need to learn she can relax the upper body and let go of the holding that has become chronic there. She would also need support in opening, allowing and receiving air, a way of breathing that is more expansive.

Ironically, one of the ballerinas cited above also has the capacity to support such opening for she is one of the few dancers I have ever seen send energy from the heart out to the audience. If Darci Kistler is teaching this kind of heart light being to her young pupils, then there is much hope for future generations of energetically balanced and giving dancers.

La Sylphide is an old ballet from the romantic period. I have watched the Bournonville Danish version that features a young Nikolaj Hubbe and the Paris Opera Ballet that features a lovely pas de trois (trio) that I would add to any version of the ballet that I might produce.

The ballet is about a young man, a dreamer, who tries to be like everyone around him, marry the girl of his youth, and stay within the bounds of the town and country he is from. But as he is a dreamer, he dreams of other things, and specifically of a beautiful, coquettish sprite from the woods called a sylph.

James, as our ballet hero is called, is a rather serious fellow. The sylph is a fairy and being a fairy, she brings him joy, light, dancing, and frivolity... until he attempts to keep her earthbound and sad by refusing to go off with her to the enchanted forest where she lives.

The poor fellow has a lot that keeps dragging him back from his dreams and this soul connection, however, so you can't really blame him for being so serious and unable to see the forest for the trees. There's his mother with her views of the old country and the way things should be and have always been. In my view, she's a follower of the sacred feminine, a channeler of Avalon. There's James' best friend, Gurn, always watching and criticizing and challenging James. Gurn also happens to be in pursuit of Effie, the young lady to whom James has been engaged for quite awhile as is the tradition in that time and place. (Not in my screen version, however.)

And then there's the witch or sorceress or town psychic, the fortune teller, depending upon how this character is played. The witch gives fortunes that positively scare Effie and James, and James doesn't treat her nicely so she is out for revenge as the woman scorned. But we don't really know what the backstory is for the ballet, as it isn't spelled out and when the ballet was created, there wasn't anything like film or screenplays to fill us in.

I'm not going to relay any more of the story because the experience that you have is so important. I will say that I believe this ballet is about connecting to your soul, whether we see the sylph as art and artists, as the Beloved of the spiritual realms, the road not taken or pursuing your dreams and heartfelt desires over remaining on the mind plane (and in the ancient version, the earth plane) only.

Today, a modern version with spiritual insight might offer a different point of view and a different ending. It might be both illuminating and enlightening. I have worked with both in several screenplays, a dance drama now entitled, La Sylphide, and in an urban fantasy that adds the idea of an enlightened roundtable called, Kissed By A Fairy. And it does play on the very word, "fairy" in its many meanings, which is intended as a play on words for new understanding.